Perfect Storm
by houston180
Summary: These things happen only once in a lifetime, but for Keegan Russ and a young Elias Walker, it's perfect timing. Pre-Ghosts, PWP.


Days of staring up at the ceiling of the hospital room had paid off in only one way: the perforations in the ceiling tile were finally visible and Keegan could begin counting them... spot by tedious, agonizing spot. Before that, the narcotics that flowed through clear plastic tubing and into the vein in his hand - held down by cloth-fibre tape and sticky film, sore and cold but the only clear spot of visibility - blurred his aquiline focus. He couldn't look beyond his fingertips, couldn't move... he vaguely remembered Merrick, Ajax, Rorke coming in to stand over his bed. It hurt to sit up, and it hurt to breathe, and his shoulder ached like his arm was coming out of its socket. But now, after days - weeks? - of watching the world through a foggy window pane, the dots in the ceiling came back into existence with a suddenness that was hard to register beyond the wash of relief that he would be able to see again. He wouldn't lose his eyes. He could _see_.

* * *

It would be another month before he could walk. He had taken hits before, but never like this. When he was lucid enough for Merrick to come in and talk to him, he learned that the bullet that had pierced his left lung had nearly taken his life. In his words, the "piece of shit goat-fucking insurgent" that "tagged" him was rotting in an alley somewhere in Gafsa. Knowing that didn't bring him any particular relief - his arm still hurt just as much as it had a second ago and he still needed help just getting to the bathroom - but he nodded and thanked him all the same.

Beyond that, he soon learned that there was only so much you could do about a punctured lung. Even the daily breathing exercises of trying to suck the little plastic ping pong ball up from the bottom of a long, clear tube and hold it there with his lung pressure didn't stop him from getting pneumonia. The only thing it did stop him from getting was any respect at all from his captain; when Rorke came in to visit and saw him at it he laughed so hard that he nearly left in tears, but only after telling him that he really didn't need to practice so hard if he wanted to suck cocks.

Ajax only beat that treatment by a small margin, rarely showing up, and the times he did he didn't have much to say save for a few beleaguered comments about football scores. At least when he or Elias came they came they always brought food with them that their wives had made; it beat the hell out of the green jello with pear chunks and nutritional shakes that the hospital kept trying to shove down his throat, but didn't wind up making him feel much better. It hurt his chest to eat and it hurt even worse to be full, but after one too many days of leaving his tray barely touched, the nurses were starting to get sick of it. ...And once his lieutenant got wind of it, Elias was in his room every single day at dinner time with another plate of roast beef, buttery mashed potatoes, gravy, and peas and carrots. Whatever the Walker family was eating, so was Keegan, and he was eating every single bite of it or Elias was going to make him.

Maybe that was the beginning of his interest. Thinking back on it, Keegan couldn't say whether or not it was the relative normalcy and comfort of the daily routine that did it or the privacy of those moments spent by his bedside asking him about his day while he carefully watched him chew and swallow that made him start looking at Elias in a different light. There was something about that perfect storm of vulnerability, familiarity, regularity... the way the young father would run his hand through his dark hair or turn his head as if to look over his shoulder when he recounted a story about one of his boys, like he expected someone to be listening behind him. There was something about it that Keegan began to notice.

* * *

"Come on Russ, this isn't a marathon."

For the third time in as many days, Elias stood and looked on as his friend swayed at the side of his bed, gripping the rail like it was the only thing keeping him up. He did his best to keep the pity out of his voice - the reclusive sniper didn't need it and wouldn't appreciate it if he sounded like he was being soft on him - though in truth that was a large part of the reason he was here. That, and a debt he earned years ago. _Blood and sand, glittering in the last rays of dusk, clinging to him like a shroud. Turning him into a spectre_. At this moment, the man in front of him seemed to be truly fading, his gown hanging from him like a sheet. It didn't hide the dressings that covered his side and extended around his back, or the drains that protruded from his skin, clipped onto the fabric with safety pins, filled with pinkish, cloudy fluid that seeped into the tubing from inside his healing lung.

"You've seen worse than this. It's a couple steps." Never mind the fact that his legs were shaking and the way he had his head turned deliberately away from the call button on the bedside table was a clear indication that there were few greater thoughts on his mind than pressing it to get assistance from the nurse. Elias wasn't about to let him do that.

First it was refusing food, which surely didn't help Keegan's current situation, and now it was a struggle to get him out of bed to try walking for himself. He was off track on his recovery, and his nurses had long since developed the habit of getting up from their station when they saw him coming down the hall with his saran-wrapped plate to give him their daily updates on his progress. It had been a month, and they wanted him up and out of bed, but he'd lost so much weight during that time that it was an ordeal for him just sitting up at the edge of his mattress. Getting him on his feet was going to be harder, and his thirty minutes of work with a physiotherapist every day just wasn't cutting it.

Like the extra food, this was something else Elias was going to have to supplement. He was starting to understand what the reticent man needed better than almost anyone, and when that didn't get him going he changed his tone to something softer and chuckled, "Even my one year old kid isn't this shy about trying to walk."

When he looked up, predictably insulted with displeasure written clear on his thin face, he held out his hand to beckon him over. "I'll catch you. Now quit stalling."

"I ... don't _need_ you to catch me." There it was. That was the spur in his side that would interrupt the endless internalizing and calculating the other would get into if you let him.

Keegan was a sniper. Usually, he had all the time in the world to make a decision, but at this rate the revolutions of his mind turning the scenario over - adjusting for angles and contingencies, coming up with alternative solutions - was something his failing body wouldn't support. Elias had to kick him out of it somehow, or he'd keep wasting away in here until it was too late to make a full recovery. But, this had worked. The man before him took a slow, measured breath, and stepped away from the bed. His steps were cautious, slow and effortful, but Elias held his ground like a sentinel, face impassive. If he gave an inch, reached any further to meet him... if Keegan caught the scent of pity in him, it would undo everything.

"Just to me and then back to the bed again." Only six steps. He should be able to do it without holding onto anything by now, but Elias remained tensed to catch him all the same. Just in case. This should be easy...

It should have been easy, but in the last moments before the younger man reached him he straightened, looked him full in the face - so rare for him, almost unheard of, he should have seen it coming but all he could do was wonder how he didn't notice his eyes were that blue-

"...Russ?" And then his hands came down on his shoulders, in his shirt, and he was kissing him.

It was impossible to respond. He couldn't push him away for fear of exacerbating his injuries, but a thousand voices were screaming inside his mind to make him stop somehow. _The door is open, your wife is waiting, the nurses could come in at any second, Rorke_- He couldn't help but notice the deceptively steady way that Keegan was gripping his shoulders. His lips still tasted like cranberry sauce.

"I know about you and the captain." The confession stung, though it was soft against his mouth with the way his lips formed the words. Like a string of kisses. It froze him in place and made his insides stir at the same time. Keegan's right hand was leaving his shoulder though the left stayed in place and kept him somehow rooted to the spot, simultaneous shame and lust tumbling free from a dozen unbidden memories of ...exactly this. Of a hand on his zipper; a carefree grin on sunburnt lips; a hot, wet tongue coaxing his mouth open before the hand in his hair pulled his head down, down, to kiss...

Kissing him. Elias hadn't even realized he was kissing him back, but he was. His hand was holding the small of the sniper's back, and that hand on his shoulder was pulling him, tugging him gently back toward the hospital bed as the other undid his pants. Fingers that were almost itoo/i certain - longer, more slender than Gabe's, but just as strong - stroked his stiffening length through the fabric and sent lances of heat travelling up through his belly; piercing through the knowledge that they shouldn't be doing this. Three steps, and the back of Keegan's thigh's bumped the rail. He let him sit without protest, leaned against it when the other palmed his cock and pulled it free of his underwear at last, using those same sure, slow, deadly strokes to make his own knees weak. Until he was leaning into him and gasping into his mouth.

"We shouldn't..." Those words sounded pathetic even to him, nothing but useless denial when they came out on the heels of a groan, sounding so breathless and pleasured that he might as well have told him to jerk him harder. Underscored by the way his erection throbbed in the other's hand. Gabe would have laughed at him for something like this. Keegan just looked up with those clear eyes, half-lidded, and paused- his thumb still pressed against his tip.

"No?" Disappointment on his face that didn't bleed through into the question in his voice. In it's place, respect, professional courtesy, understanding... It would have been simple to pull away then, do up his pants, and go home.

But nothing was ever that simple. Or at least, Elias could never manage to keep it that way. "_Shouldn't_." He was going to do it anyway; it had been days, and he was aching for this long before Keegan had begun to touch him. He'd only hate himself a little more... what was a little more on top of everything else?

All he did was let the other keep up those precise, rhythmic strokes, as he leaned down, pushed aside his gown, and swallowed the head of his cock. Tried to ignore the ache in his gut that told him this was wrong. It would go away eventually. His heart thudded in his chest in time with the sweet pulsing of his own hard on and made his breath come fast and shallow, shuddering a little around the firm, warm flesh that slid easily past his lips and left the taste of salt on his tongue. Keegan's faint, muted groan echoing in his ears sent another wash of heat over his skin, and the way his grip faltered and those measured strokes fumbled slightly around him made his cock twitch. He couldn't have known how much he wanted this... or maybe he did. Recon was a sniper's job, wasn't it? Maybe he knew all along, and he was just picking his moment to take the shot. Either way...

"I won't tell him." Low, murmurred words next to his ear that might have been an afterthought, but they were all the encouragement Elias needed. When the younger man picked up his head with a gentle hand in his hair to press their lips together again, he undid his pants entirely and let them drop. Let the hand on his hip pull him onto the bed as readily as the other lead him by the hair.

When he climbed over top Keegan's hips - careful to avoid touching his injured side with his knee - the only thing he was thinking of was how the knots in his stomach and the aching, painful need for release was close to being sated. Keegan's cock stood up full and straight and heavy against his abdomen and he wanted it, badly. Couldn't contain a short, clipped noise of pleasure as he gripped him by the base and let gravity seat him dizzyingly, gradually, onto his length. Could feel it pressing him open, inch by inch, until he was resting on the sniper's hips watching his face as the tip of his cock pulsed lightly against a spot inside him that nothing else could reach quite so nicely. He stayed still while the younger man's lips parted and his eyes closed, but with the first roll of Keegan's hips up into him he couldn't stand it any more. Wasn't sure how he'd known... how he'd seen this desire in him, but here it was, and there was no going back.

Elias pressed his own hand against his mouth - like he'd learned to do with Rorke when there was a chance they would be overheard - and rode him as quickly as he dared. Let the pounding in his chest and the heady, breathless feeling of pleasure drive out any other thoughts. Only leaned forward when Keegan's hands found his thighs to keep them spread safely open so he wouldn't brush his wounds or pull out his drains. Didn't care whether the other wanted to lay still or move his hips to fuck him harder as he pleased, his only concern left was the way his own cock was dripping and the way the movements of the man inside him made his head spin and his pulse pound in his temples. It was good. It was _magic_. Looking down to see the younger man's lips parted and his cheeks flushed as he moved steadily over him got his cock even harder, but the surprise of seeing his ice blue eyes open, clear, and fixed on his hips as they rocked was enough to bring a flush to his own skin. It was enough to make him tear his hand away from his mouth, finally, to run his tongue slowly over his lips, pause around the younger man's tip and milk it slowly. He could tell from the way Keegan's thighs were tensing he was close; he wanted to cum, but not before the other did.

He was surprised again when the hands on his thighs gripped tighter and pulled him down hard, just as he thrust up into him, effort creasing his brow. It nearly wrung a cry from his throat. The way the head of his cock struck him made his muscles tense, and Keegan didn't give him a chance to recover; he did it again, as hard as the first, jolting him over onto his hand. He couldn't uncover his mouth or he was going to make noise, and someone would come to investigate, but the way Keegan was forcing him down onto his cock was good enough to dull his vision... he was making it hard to breathe, and he was so hot he was starting to sweat. His own thighs were starting to shake... he couldn't...

Elias came so suddenly he had to bite his hand to keep quiet, and he almost fell over onto the man underneath him, shuddering until he'd spurted out every last drop of his cum onto his stomach. Underneath him, the only sign the sniper gave of reaching his own orgasm was his eyes slipping shut and his body tensing up to drive his entire length into him. It was long seconds before he could move to get up and roll off him, never forgetting to be mindful of his dressings and all the tubes and lines connecting him to the life-giving equipment around them. Their fingers brushed as he left the bed, but Keegan was close to passing out and Elias had a mind to let him.

He put his pants back on, collected his plate, and turned out the light. As an afterthought, he pulled the younger man's gown back across his hips and placed his blanket over him. He'd be back tomorrow. Neither of them would mention this.

That was exactly the way Elias wanted it.


End file.
